After 54 holes, Ghei's total score stood at seven under par 203, one stroke ahead of city-mate Vivek Bhandari and Lucknow's Vijay Kumar. The latter, alongwith Kanpur's Shiv Prakash, ended up with the day's best card of five under par 65.

Leader for the last two days, Jyoti Randhawa, slipped from the pedestal with a two over par 72 card. He started the day at six under, teeing-off with his new city-mates Bhandari and Ghei. Randhawa, originally from Meerut, had a steady start. After parring the first two, he birdied the 356 yard par-4 third and looked in command. While he managed to continue with his steady play, Ghei and Bhandari started advancing. Ghei birdied the the par three second and topped it with an eagle on the fourth to comewithin striking range of Randhawa.

``I have been scoring well but not playing well,'' reflected Ghei while talking to mediamen later in the evening. ``And with the tough competition, a one-stroke really accounts for nothing. I hope I continue with the good run,'' he added.

Having dropped a shot on the very first hole, Bhandari had a rather unfavourable start. He started picking his game from the fifth hole as he cupped a 10-feet putt for a birdie. He went on to birdie the seventh and the eighth, the latter with a 12-feet putt to go six-under on his total score.

While Ghei and Bhandari managed to stay put, Randhawa's play started falling. He bogeyed the ninth and dropped two shots on the par-3 150 yard 10th. A birdie on par five 16th came as a welcome relief only to three putt the 18th for a bogey.

In fact, the last hole was rather interesting with both Ghei and Randhawa finding the bunker ahead of the greens on the second shot, while Bhandari came to rest just inside the greens. Leading scores (after54 holes)203: Gaurav Ghei (73+63+67); 204: Vivek Bhandari (69+67+68); Vijay Kumar (70+69+65); 205: 72+65+68); 206: Jyoti Randhawa (64+70+72); 207: Basad Ali (68+68+71); 209: Arjun Atwal (70+73, 66); 210: Rafiq Ali (71+69+70)Amateurs: 230: Amit Nigam (75+77+78); 236: Rohit Goel (76+79+81)